Thursday, August 26, 2010

A DaddyLand Rant: Lemonade - The Last Stand

Today we have a Very Special Guest Writer, Eric Ruhalter from The Kid Dictionary. The words about kids and parenting that he makes up are HILARIOUS. The videos are AWESOME. If you don't know about The KidDictionary, you'll thank us.

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The Lemonade Stand. It’s a childhood classic, Last weekend amidst the dog days of summer, my kids approached their mother and I, asking if they could set up a Lemonade stand. Sure, why not? So their mom got to mixing up a few pitchers of Newman’s Lemonade and baking some brownies, while they stood entirely too close to her and repeatedly asked her if they were ready yet.

Then they started working on fixing a price. Their first instinct was to charge exorbitant sums of money for their wares. Lemonade at 10 bucks per cup, 20 bucks for a brownie. That way they could sell 2 cups of lemonade and 1 brownie and have a pretty substantial net profit. Thusly allowing them to polish off the rest of the lemonade and brownies themselves with their pockets fat with cash. But we talked them through their faulty understanding of Supply and Demand and ultimately settled on 25 cents per glass of lemonade, 50 cents per brownie. Very reasonable. Especially since their overhead came, not out of their profits, but out of our grocery bill.

Next we set up shop at the end of the driveway. We made a table from a piece of plywood and two saw horses. The cash till was a dirty bucket from the sandbox. The brownies and pitcher of lemonade sat beside it, beckoning to customers. They made large illustrative signs to lure people in who might be driving, walking or bicycling by.

Like police checkpoints, they should be forced to post notice of their lemonade stand in the papers to warn people. Some might want to alter their route to avoid this lemonade stand. Lots of pressure. The second a car or pedestrian or bicyclist dared to set foot on our street, the harassment began – “LEMONAAAAAADE!!!!! AND BROWNIES!!!!! BUY SOME LEMONADE!!!! AND BROWNIES!!!!!!!” All up in everyone’s grill like a Krishna at the airport.

Their kill ratio was high. Most people like a good cup of lemonade and a brownie. And everyone else is probably willing to flip them a quarter in order to shut them up.

Crosby, my 8 year old set out to stroll the neighborhood’s adjacent streets to alert every resident about his lemonade stand. And they came out in droves to purchase their goods. When all was said and done they had more than 40 bucks in their till. Not a bad haul. Show me a grownup who can sell that many brownies with one hand in their nose and the other in their pants.

I think that large corporations should take note of this phenomenon – People will buy anything from a kid. The Girl Scouts organization is definitely hip to this, but perhaps some brokerage on Wall St. should follow the lead and see what happens if they set up a first-grader to make cold calls for mutual funds. They’d probably do it for a cup of lemonade and a brownie.

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Eric Ruhalter is the creator of the hilarious gift book series “The KidDictionary: Words Parents Need To Describe Their Kids.” Check it out at http://www.thekiddictionary.com/.